PhD Candidate: Sexuality and Masculinity in Populist Radical Right Leadership
In what ways do the performance of, referral to, and position on masculinity and homosexuality help explain the differences in the success of the populist radical right leaders and parties (i.e. LPF, PVV and FvD) in Dutch society and its constituent parts?
That is the central research question you will be asked to answer as our PhD candidate.
Your main tasks will be to answer the research questions by connecting theories and concepts from the literatures on voting, leadership, media, masculinity, and homonationalism. Also, you will conduct innovative empirical research on a diverse set of actors, such as party leaders, media, party aficionados and voters. You will apply a multi-method perspective to a range of sources, potentially including party manifestos, books published by party leaders, parliamentary material, traditional news media and social media coverage, and voter data.
To be able to do this, you will have to be proactive in finding and analysing empirical sources. Moreover, you will write scientific articles, participate in conferences, seminars and other scholarly activities, contribute to teaching, and complete a PhD dissertation within four years.
REQUIREMENTS
You are expected to have a clear affinity for and relevant experience with the topic and multi-methods research, as evidenced by:
- A Master’s degree in political science, sociology, gender and diversity studies, or a related field.
- Research experience in quantitative research, in particular in advanced regression analyses.
- Research experience in qualitative research, in particular in content analysis.
- Affinity for research on social media and data scraping.
- Proven interest in and knowledge of theories on homonationalism, masculinity, political communication or voting behaviour.
- Excellent command of written and spoken English and Dutch.
- Strong social and communicative skills and an appetite for transcending paradigmatic differences in jargon.
- An aptitude for developing new skills and a knowledge base in the case of deficiencies.
CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT
Fixed-term contract: you will be appointed for an initial period of 18 months, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, the contract will be extended by 2.5 years.
- Employment: 32 – 40 hours per week.
- The gross starting salary amounts to €2,325 per month, and will increase to €2,972 in the fourth year (salary scale P).
- In addition to the salary: an 8% holiday allowance and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
- Duration of the contract: you will be appointed for an initial period of 18 months, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, the contract will be extended by 2.5 years.
- The intended start date is 1 September 2020.
- As part of the contract, you will participate in teaching for approximately 10% of your work time.
- You will be able to make use of our Dual Career Service: our Dual Career Officer will assist with family-related support, such as child care, and help your partner prepare for the local labour market and with finding an occupation.
- Are you interested in our excellent employment conditions?
This project is based on an internally funded competition. A short proposal is available to the candidates. This proposal sets the stage for the project, but we encourage you to critically reflect on the proposal and formulate your own ideas on the topic.